Advent is a sacred season of preparation in which we are urged to open our hearts in totality to the ineffable joy and love of the Light of all lights, giving ourselves over in trusting abandonment to the Child-King, in order that the Risen Lord may enter fully into eternal communion with us as adopted sons and daughters of God.
Ultimately, Advent finds its completion in our union with God, as we are swept up into the supernatural life of the Holy Trinity. Yet such an incomparable event is not something which merely dwells in a yet-to-be-realized future; nor is it something accessed only after we pass through the thin veil of death which soon awaits us all. As members of holy mother Catholic Church, our thirst for communion with the Triune God is satisfied by the Risen Lord himself, who both announces the great eucharistic feast at his altar as well as provides for it, in order to enable us to consume his own flesh and blood -- the food of eternal life.
In the words of Blessed John Paul II, the Eucharistic "sacrifice is so decisive for the salvation of the human race that Jesus Christ offered it and returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it as if we had been present there. Each member of the faithful can thus take part in it and inexhaustibly gain its fruits. This is the faith from which generations of Christians down the ages have lived" (Ecclesia De Eucharistia 11).
Through the gift of Eucharist, our eyes of faith are sharpened as we enter into communion with Christ and share in his own life. Blessed John Paul II noted that "whenever the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the faithful can in some way relive the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: 'their eyes were opened and they recognized him'" (Lk 24:31; Ecclesia De Eucharistia 6).
The Council Fathers informed the faithful that our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice at the Last Supper "in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages," entrusting to the Church "a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet in which Christ is eaten, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us" (Sacrosanctum Concilium 47).
Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI notes that the "first element of eucharistic faith is the mystery of God himself, trinitarian love." For "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, . . ." (Jn 3:16). "In the Eucharist Jesus does not give us a 'thing,' but himself; he offers his own body and pours out his own blood. He thus gives us the totality of his life and reveals the ultimate origin of this love" (Sacramentum Caritatis 7).
